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Friday, November 9, 2012

Mints and Rings

I actually forgot to post about this yesterday and the day before. I kept thinking about it but when it was time to write, I couldn't remember it. Kianwi accidentally reminded me when she posted about old love on her blog yesterday, but since I had already posted, I decided to just post it today, with the full details.

Night before last, I was a hostess at the restaurant. It was pretty dead since it was a Wednesday night. I was there for at least forty-five minutes before I finally sat a table. There were seven servers that night and each person only had two tables until everyone except two people were cut so they ended up with a total of four each. We did have one big party of ten, but that counted as one table for one server. Like I said, nobody really showed up.

One of the servers and I hung out a good portion of that time, since he was the last on the list for tables. He moved to the table by the door and told me, "You know there are toothpicks here, right? Well, we used to have mints but not anymore. I'm probably why. We used to have them but I would take like ten at a time and they just stopped buying them." I laughed because I would do that too.

Eventually, an older man came in. I smiled at him and asked, "Hi there. How many?" He gave me a happy smile and told me, "There will be two. My wife is supposed to meet me." That wasn't a problem. I expected it would only be a few minutes, as it usually is, and it wasn't like we were packed so I would be able to remember where he was.

Almost an hour had passed and I almost forgot about the man. The woman he was supposed to meet had yet to show up and when I went to check to see if there were any tables that needed to be wiped off or set, I saw him. "I wonder if he got stood up? I hope not. That would be embarrassing... Oh, gosh. I hope the woman he's supposed to meet isn't in his head."

Not long after I returned to the hostess station, an older woman came in. "Hi. How many are there?" I asked, smiling for the simple fact that I had something to do, no matter how brief it would be. "Oh, I'm just meeting somebody here. He might already be here." She told me. Maybe the man wasn't crazy after all. "I think I know who you're meeting. Would you follow me?" I asked. She agreed and I took her to the man, at table 80. "That's him." She told me, so I left her there since I saw the server was in the area.

I actually managed to seat a couple more people before the server came up to the hostess station, where another server and I were talking. We stopped talking and looked at her.

"That was probably the most romantic, sweetest fucking thing I've ever seen. It was damn gross but that was just so sweet." She told us.

The male server and I looked at each other before looking back at her. "What happened?" I asked. I just had to know. She made me too curious, even if she said it was gross and that could mean that I would regret it.

"That old couple at table 80 is celebrating their 30th anniversary tonight. She got up to go to the bathroom and he slipped this big ass diamond ring into her salad." She told us.

All three of us stopped, just to soak in the idea of how sweet it was. I thought things like that only ever happened on TV and were so corny that nobody would do that. It was pretty shocking to hear other wise.

"You know, that is pretty nasty. I mean, who knows what touched that ring? But it is sweet though." We all agreed on that and decided we would not want to find jewelry in our food, or anything else that was not supposed to be there for that matter.

Maybe forty-five minutes later, the couple walked around the corner and headed for the door. "Have a good night." I told them. I wanted to tell them happy anniversary, but I wasn't sure they would appreciate knowing that we were talking about them. They had the biggest smiles I have ever seen and I didn't want to risk it.

They stopped at the little table by the door. "Do you have any mints?" They asked me. I never knew that we didn't have mints before, only that I couldn't find them, until I had been told. "We used to. Not any more though." They laughed and headed out.

About Me

My name is Rachel. I'm 23 years old. My boyfriend (Wolfy) and I live together with our one-eyed hamster, Cashew, and his little brother, Munchies. I'm a smartass, I curse, and I have a weird sense of humor.
My mom and I are releasing a cook book titled My Momma's Cookbook (follow us on instagram for updates! @mymommascookbook). And I am writing my own book, about all the shit I've dealt with from abuse to bullying to depression to that one time a vegetarian came into the steakhouse I worked in and said, "Hi, I'm vegetarian, what can I eat besides a salad?" and I had to get my manager involved.
I hope you stick around but if it's too weird for you here, that's okay. Either way, I wish you the best.